Patchwork
by legendarytobes
Summary: After the events of "The Good, the Bad, and the Crispy," Linda reflects on everything in her hospital room and what it means to be friends with Celestials.


**Patchwork**

_For the Lucifer Bingo Prompt of "duct tape"_

The only sounds in the room are the beeping of the machines monitoring her and the drone of the oxygen feeding in through the tube in her nose. The last twenty-four hours are a kaleidoscope. The Goddess coming to her, the duct tape holding her body together, the damn rays of light, so like lasers from beneath her skin. The burns, the char of flesh, the screaming.

Linda can still hear her own screams, her throat gone raw with them.

And she tried so hard not to say anything, not to betray any of her friends because nothing the Goddess had planned would be good for _any _of them. Certainly not humanity, which the Goddess viewed as an annoyance on a good day, and not Amenadiel or Lucifer who would be dragged to heaven and thrown into a war that _everyone_ but maybe the two deities who founded this whole crazy mess would lose. For the first hour, she'd kept her mouth shut except to scream. The burns she'd managed to endure, the terrible reek of burning flesh. But then the Goddess had found the letter opener and stabbed her.

She'd screamed with the blow, the tear in her abdomen so severe and sudden, that it had snapped Linda out of her shock. Once upon a time, she'd been in medical school. It had been years since rounds in med school and, as she often and emphatically told Lucifer, she was _not_ that kind of doctor, but she knew enough to know how badly injured she was then, that the Goddess had struck her hard enough to incur blood loss that would kill her in hours.

And Linda was _only_ human. She might have run with a demon, an archangel, and Satan, himself, but she was mortal and fallible. She was weak, and she hadn't wanted to die. So, when the Goddess had pulled the letter opener back to strike again, Linda had told her everything the deity wanted to know. Had given up her friends, and it had been so wrong. But the goddess had left her alone then, left her to bleed out and struggle to survive.

It was still only a crazy miracle from Amenadiel, based in powers he supposedly no longer possessed, that kept her alive now. That and the best medicine the hospital could provide. And everything _hurt_. She'd been conscience enough to speak with the doctors after she'd come out of surgery on her abdomen. They'd hold her at least a week for the burns and the surgery, make sure peritonitis hadn't set in. There'd be a consult with the plastic surgeon for her arms and talk of grafts.

Then her friends had come in, one by one. Amenadiel had held her close, and in that instant, she'd forgiven him for anything he'd done to her, for his lies as the so-called Dr. Canaan, for some of the pettiness he'd treated Maze with this year. He'd saved her life, and that was all that mattered to her. He'd been her hero, and something warm flickered in her gut and across her skin in a way that had nothing to do with the way the goddess had burned her and everything to do with feelings she thought long dead after a long, loveless wreck of a marriage with Reese.

Maze had snuck her in a bottle of top shelf wine from Lux. While she was on more than enough painkillers for that to be a terrible idea, to mix with the morphine and depress her breathing, Linda hadn't given a damn. She'd drunk greedily from the bottle while Maze watched the door and then both of them had plotted impossible yet wonderful scenarios of how to corner the goddess once Lucifer detained her, of how to make her be the one to burn and bleed. Sometimes, even if she were normally a woman of logic and science, Linda needed to see the world the way Maze did. Her best friend was fearless, scared of nothing, and Linda was in her head all the time, running through the possibilities and ramifications. Sometimes letting the rest of the world pass her by as she solved _everyone else's problems_. But for an hour until a blustering resident chased Maze away, the two of them had drunk and cursed and plotted like the best of Tribe Night, and Linda felt safe.

It was dumb in a way. A demon-even one as strong as Maze-couldn't hope to stop the Goddess of All Creation, but Linda knew lying on her hospital bed that Maze would try, would do anything to keep her safe, and that mattered so very much.

And then Lucifer had come, and she'd only seen her patient (slash-friend-slash-long ago lover-slash-it was all too complicated, wasn't it) that nervous around her twice before. Once, he'd left a hole in her wall at least a foot thick from where he'd punched it. She should have damn well known then that Lucifer had never spoken in metaphors. He hadn't been running on adrenaline and with his wiry build hadn't been on steroids, but her logical mind needed to keep telling her that heaven and hell weren't real. That the devil couldn't possibly exist. Her own sanity needed to believe she hadn't had sex with the actual devil. So she'd ignored it, even though it was a massive clue to ignore. But he'd come back a week later and offered her apologies and gifts and inducements, and still not quite made eye contact with her because even as insufferable as he'd been with his ego in their early months, he'd known enough to be ashamed.

Then, there was the whole debacle of him showing her his true face. Something that had left her catatonic for a week and barely functioning the rest of the month of November. She'd weathered it, come through it, and now that she had time to filter back through those memories, Linda could focus not only on the scarred and still-the always-horrific visage that they underneath the devilishly handsome face he normally wore but also on his expression after. That moment when he'd flickered back to how he presented himself to the world, to that charming playboy and club owner. Then, his expression hadn't been smirking or proud or even a tad bit smarmy. No. It had been incredibly gentle and sad, inhumanly patient and he hadn't moved a muscle near her, even though she hadn't been able to process it. That fear, that shame, that complete phobia that he'd run another person off. Before, of course, it had been his own (and she was gathering very large) family.

But he'd been scared he'd driven her off too.

So, a few hours ago, Linda had seen it again. Something she was sure even Amenadiel and Maze had never really glimpsed-that face of shame that Lucifer had gifted her with thrice. Not that she wanted it, but there was something compelling and intoxicating and downright confusing in the fact that the Devil-capital _D_-cared what a human thought, let alone someone as inconsequential as her. But it meant more than that even. The progress they'd made, that he understood such things, that he cared about their relationship as friends, that he understood what they owed to each other. She wasn't sure the Lucifer who had first sauntered into her office and been amused by her unfortunate promises of hot yoga flexibility (stupid mojo) would have had any of the humility of the empathy to do that, to offer that concern.

And he'd apologized. But she'd done her share too, and it had shocked her he hadn't blamed her for being weak, for failing after an hour to stay strong and try and save the world. He'd been the one worried for her, the one practically offering her an out and a chance to leave the Celestial match behind. Part of Linda wanted to take it, wanted to avoid ever being scared or fried or stabbed or lying alone thinking that it was all over. She wasn't a fool, and she could do the math. Her friends were almost indestructible (well Amenadiel would be if he ever earned back his Grace), and she was not. If it wasn't the goddess this time, it might be a rogue demon later or a crooked cop Lucifer had pissed off or an angelic sibling with a dark side. It could be any of those things that cut her time on Earth short.

But she'd rarely had friends. She'd been too competitive in med school to retain them, too focused on her caseload to be social afterwards, and the less said about her love life (or serious lack thereof this last decade with Reese) the better. But now she had a best friend who would kill for her, and two sort-of angels who treated her like she was the most precious thing in the world to them just because she was their friend.

It was worth that risk.

Or, as she'd told Lucifer, she'd take it all on again-the good, the bad, and the crispy.

And she meant that. Of course, she did. In the waning light, with the sun setting out her hospital window, and with the oppressive hum of the machinery surrounding her, it was a little harder to hold onto that oath. Not because she wouldn't defend her friends with all she had-after all, they'd done the same for her-but because she still knew she was human.

Which meant _weak_.

The goddess had used that against her and almost ended everything until Lucifer figured out the one solution-imperfect as it was-that could save them all. As the darkness crept over, Linda worried about that part, about her own weaknesses and her own surety that one day she'd end up in Hell with her former patient as her warden. Because there was no guarantee she wouldn't fold for the next demon or crazy angel that needed to know Lucifer's plans. No guarantee she could hold up even as well next time to torture, and, _of course_, there would be a next time.

She only hoped that she could prove herself as worthy to her friends as the three of them had proven to her when the time came.

So, she'd rest here and now, hope for the best as far as infection was concerned. Linda would definitely take Lucifer up on his offers for the best treatment and perks after she was out. And she'd patch herself back together, body and soul, drag out duct tape, metaphorically speaking, and fix herself. She had no choice because her demon and angelish friends needed her, and she had _no_ intention of letting them down again.

Even if she were only human, merely an ant among giants.

She'd been used to that before, to being discounted for being tiny, but she was still here, and the goddess was not. So that was something, and as she pressed the button for more from her morphine drip, it would have to be enough for now. Because come literal Hell or high water, she wasn't going anywhere.

She just needed more duct tape to keep it all together.


End file.
